Fellow Christian, have you considered the significant role you play in God’s mission to rescue humanity? Consider Paul’s words to Timothy:
Be conscientious about how you live and what you teach. Persevere in this, because by doing so you will save both yourself and those who listen to you. (1 Tim. 4:16).
Read those words again and let them sink in. Does it strike you as weird or even wrong for Paul to say, “you will save both yourself and your hearers”? Some might retort, “It is God alone who saves!” Paul wouldn’t argue that point, but he would add that God does so through human instruments. Paul used similar language in 1 Corinthians 9:22: “I have become all things to all people, so that by all means I may save some.”
After I preached on 1 Timothy 4:16 this past Sunday, I received an email from a dear brother in Christ who thanked me for the sermon and proceeded to share a wonderful analogy, saying,
Your comments on the idea of “you will save yourself and your hearers” sparked a thought. God uses His ministers as sort of life-preservers. He fashions us and tosses us out into the sea to be the means of rescue. He aims us, holds the rope, and draws us back in with those He sent us to. The salvation is all of Him, yet we are truly used to “save.” Our part? Never to cut the rope, and never to get water-logged. Submit to His tossing in place and time, and let the others hang on to us until He reels us back in.
Jesus employed a similar illustration when he said to his disciples, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19). Early last week I read a superb article by Tim Challies titled, “How Evangelism Is Kind of Like Fishing,” in which he offers some practical insights based on Jesus’ analogy. To read that article, click here.
Don’t minimize the significant role you play in God’s mission to rescue lost humanity. Jesus and Paul sure didn’t!